As it is known, currently most patients hospitalized in Hospitals and Health Centers, must be carried internally therein in order to access different areas of diagnosis and treatment, including mostly the surgical area.
To that end, there is the usual routine wherein the patient is placed in the room at least by two medical workers or specialized stretcher-bearer staff who, firstly proceed to place the patient support pad under the body of the patient. The patient support pad is a textile piece of plastic material, resistant and washable including grip handles in correspondence with its perimeter edge.
Once the patient is prepared, they proceed to bring the stretcher close, placing it adjacent to the bed and to execute the maneuvers of moving the patient until the patient is placed on the transfer stretcher. To do so, they follow very strict universal rules that require the presence of a medical worker or stretcher-bearer on one side of the bed, another at the end and the third at the bedhead, in many cases a fourth person is included, located at the side of the stretcher, opposite to the first one. Then the medical workers located on the sides bend forward, holding the handles of the stretcher or patient support pad, while the other two hold the head and feet of the patient.
Then somebody orders the transfer so that, jointly and in unison, the patient is lifted, laterally moved and placed on the attached stretcher, which still with the best willingness and experience results an abrupt and untimely maneuver due to the limitation of the human effort upon the weight and location of the patient to be moved.
Once the patient is placed on said stretcher, movement thereof takes place with a stretcher-bearer at the front and another at the end, which is moved from the room towards the halls and elevators until it reaches the area where the patient is subjected to a diagnosis or treatment (rays, tomography, orthopedics, etc.) or the surgery area where said maneuvers are made again to place the patient on the corresponding operating table.
Finally, once each treatment of the patient has finished the patient must return to their bed, therefore the same moving and transfer service as described above is required.
It can be affirmed that, until today no apparatus, devices or equipment conceived for replacing in the same manner and idiosyncrasy the maneuvers at unison made by stretcher-bearers and medical workers to move inpatients are known. Only some boards are known that have perimeter handles or coach-stretchers that displace to the side a rigid conveyor belt of considerable thickness which is introduced through a crank between the bed and the patient and that after inverting the sense literally “drags” the patient towards the stretcher without lifting him and this mechanical device cannot copy at all the softness of the cradle made by the patient support pad, however they do not eliminate most of the synchronization tasks or efforts needed to move the patient.